The whole world's gonna be watching.

There weren’t any huge surprises over March
and April, at least in terms of films that no one expected to do well becoming
break-out hits. Certainly, we saw under-performers, and a couple of
over-performers, but nothing has become the sizable hit studios want as an
all-round boost until the last couple of weeks has.

That mega-hit finally arrived in the last
week of April (internationally). Iron Man
Three has already made $680m worldwide, even increasing its international
take in its second week (quite remarkable). As some analysts have been given to
comment, it’s behaving like a sequel to Avengers,
rather than to Iron Man 2. And makes
Robert Downey Jr. fairly unbeatable. Iron
Man 2 finished with $60m less than the third installment has taken in 10
days. The only question now is how far towards $1.5bn it will head, rather than
if it will hit the billion mark. My estimated ($750-900m) now appears very
conservative, although I’d estimate at the US tally ending up in the $400-450m
range (I guessed $330-370m). But anyone thinking this is prescriptive of the
response to Thor: The Dark World is
kidding themselves.

Prior to the return of Tony Stark, the
year’s biggest hit was Oz The Great and
Powerful. I expected this to be a disappointment and, relative to its cost,
it has been. It’s nearing a final total now, and stands at $484m. Significantly,
that total is near 50-50 US/International; not the kind of ratio studios want
in this day and age. With a cost of $200m+, Disney will no doubt break even
eventually, but I doubt that they will bank on a sequel. Just imagine how
different it might have been had Downey Jr. been bagged rather than non-star
James Franco. I wouldn’t bet against the former’s Pinocchio being a hit, however unlikely it sounds on paper. I
didn’t think Oz would get more than
$400m worldwide ($170m US); it has received more of a welcome than I expected,
but still a slightly tepid one.

Another one I had low expectations for is The Croods, so the moral is to never
underestimate an animated movie. It’s reached half a billion worldwide and,
although it’s trailing off now, it’s comfortably in Dreamworks’ Top 10 in that
genre. Which will be a relief to shareholders. The studio has won a reprieve
until next time, and the film has done as well as could probably be hoped for. Again,
I didn’t expect this to reach more than $400m worldwide; an underperformer as
opposed to the medium-sized hit for the studio it’s become (it’s $200m behind Madagascar 3).

G.I.
Joe: Retaliation’s only upset has been in a
heartier International response than predicted for a quintessentially American
property. The first film was split almost 50/50; this one is currently closer
to 70/30 in favour of International. At $355m worldwide, we may yet see another
sequel in spite of reshoots, 3D conversion and release delays. My top-end
estimate of $290m was somewhat short, but in the same ballpark.

Rounding out the Top Five for the year to
date is the critically savaged A Good Day
to Die Hard, which has limped past $300m on the strength of international
sales (a massive 78% of takings, a similar ratio to Hansel and Gretel). Some writer’s been touting his name about as
drafting Die Hard 6; bunkum in his
case, one suspects. But, given the under-control budget, a sixth chapter seems
an eventual inevitability. Make a final sequel by all means but please let John
McClane bow out with a bit of dignity and a decent director, Fox.

Oblivion is roughly in line with expectations; a reasonable return thus far,
but it wont do anything stratospheric. So Kosinski and Cruise live to make more
movies, but there won’t be any blank cheques forthcoming. I estimated $270-350m
worldwide. With a current take of $222m, the $300m barrier may be reachable. In
the US it will flounder somewhere around the $90m mark, further emphasising
Cruise’s loss of appeal on home soil.

Although Oz definitely wasn’t a success to crow about, the movie that all
the “This year’s John Carter” headlines have been written about has barely
grossed its production budget. Bryan Singer’s decay into blandly serviceable
fare has reached its nadir with Jack the
Giant Slayer. I estimated a top end of $170m, which is close to the $195m
near-final figure.

Identity
Thief is your typical surprise US comedy hit, in
that the Rest of the World has greeted it indifferently. Nearly 80% of its
gross is from home audiences, further underlying that a Hangover-type phenomenon is a relative rarity.

As if to underline this point, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone bombed
like you wouldn’t believe. It has yet to open in many markets, but any kind of
recovery is beyond reach. It’s the one I’ve got most wrong, since a $22m US
gross (so, unlikely to get even to $50m worldwide) against my minimum estimates
of US $70m/ international $160m. I guess I just liked the trailer. Jim Carrey
certainly won’t be the comeback kid this year.

Still on the comedy front, the flop that is
The Big Wedding ($13m US) is hardly
likely to salvage itself when it goes global. Director Justin Zackham appears
to be taking much of the blame. Even my low-end estimates ($55/$85m US/Int)
look high.

Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain won’t reach $50m US, and is hardly likely to ignite
elsewhere now. I thought it might do a bit better, but it seems audiences
aren’t too well disposed to his queasy black comedy (even when he’s done the
same with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence there have been mutterings of
concern). Still, it didn’t cost much. My estimates were $65/$90m US/Int low
end.

Olympus
Has Fallen has slightly exceeded my high-end
estimates (currently at $95m, I expected no more than $75m) but it doesn’t
appear to being met with rapture internationally. Leave that to Roland
Emmerich. Currently at $135m worldwide, it will top my high-end estimate of
$140m.

The
Evil Dead remake is currently standing at $72m
globally. If it wasn’t so nasty (at the expense of scary), it might have been
better received. It was cheap, and a sequel is guaranteed, but it should have
gone $100m+ given the hype.

The Weinsteins’ resuscitation of Scary Movie has been met with even
greater indifference than the return of
Scream a couple of years back. At $50m, it has made only a third as much as
the next lowest grosser in the franchise.

In contrast, Brad Anderson’s Halle
Berry-starrer The Call has made a
tidy little profit for Sony; $51m US with many regions still to show it.

I bet low for The Host, but not low enough, it seems. No one seems much
interested in non-Twilight Stephenie
Meyer and at $48m that’s some way short of my minimum bid of $75m Worldwide.

Tyler Perry’s latest (US-only) did business
in line with expectations, while the likes of Last Exorcism 2 and Dead Man
Down have fizzled. Nobody was much interested in Tina Fey and Paul Rudd in Admission, while The Place Beyond the Pines has had limited success on a limited
budget (so evens at best).

That leaves 42, currently going strong at $78m and showing legs. I batted for
$80-120m, and it could easily top $100m US. Worldwide it’s still unlikely to
get much traction, however.

May-June is where it all kicks off. Star Trek Into Darkness is currently
provoking some unease as a potential underperformer, with suggestions that the
marketing has been botched by J J Abrams; giving a shit about the identity of a
villain the general public is clueless about is possibly a mistake. And fanboys
are already cursing its appropriation of, and disrespect for, the series’
mythology.

Fast
and Furious 6 and The Hangover Part III open on the same weekend in the US, which is
asking to split audiences. But both are pretty much dead certs; I’m not sure that
the previous Hangover was as
disdained by the public as it was by critics and the Internet. But we shall
see.

I’ve been doubtful about Epic’s chances but now it’s looking more
like kids’ fare coming at the right time (and Turbo, for which I was optimistic, may be a bit late in the
season). I’m still having trouble seeing After
Earth doing much more than Oblivion-sized
business. Now You See Me is one of
the few releases that looks like it will ask its audience to come in with their
brains switched on so, provided it does, it would be nice if it’s a sleeper
hit. It could get lost in the melee, however.

The
Internship could go either way; the Vince
Vaughn/Owen Wilson heyday of Wedding
Crashers is nearly a decade hence, and comedy (even Adam Sandler comedy)
has a shelf life. However it does in America, its chances in the rest of the
World are likely limited.

Man
of Steel will go through the roof; it’s the only
movie I can really see giving Iron Man
Three a run for its money this summer. Hey, I want to see it and I’m
ambivalent about the now-pantless superhero.

I’ve been conservative with my estimates
for Monsters University, but
apparently test screenings have gone incredibly well. As for World War Z, I’m expecting it to open at
very least, and I can quite see International audiences lapping it up. The
anti-PG-13-zombie crowd won’t be happy no matter what, however. Whitehouse Down has just released a
trailer that looks like the kind of daft thrill ride you expect from the
director of 2012, so I don’t think Olympus getting out of the gate first
will harm its chances. The Heat,
given Identity Thief’s success, will
surely do well in the US, but again, all bets are off when exporting comedies.

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